Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE and others .. quo vadis?

[juan_lutz]

I don't want to start a discussion about which desktop system is the best.
My interest lies much more in the development direction of these.
Cinnamon:
It seems that one of the Cinnamon maintainers for Debian (Norbert Preining) has migrated to KDE. So his contribution to Cinnamon 5.0 for Debian is over. What does this mean for Linux Mint Cinnamon in general and for the Debian version in particular?. Cinnamon uses modern technology but keeps the UI changes conservative, he said, (?). What does this mean, what would be a NON-conservative position? and what implications does this have for users, especially Linux Mint users? For the moment Cinnamon seems to me a stable, modern, adjustable (without falling into ridiculous failures) and very reliable system between one version and another of Linux Mint.
KDE
It seems that the KDE/Plasma 5 version is sweeping over the previous unstable versions 3 and 4.An additional highlight seems to be the wide range of applications available, much more than for Gnome for example. As a Linux Mint user, however KDE is not an alternative. Or am I wrong?
Gnome 40
I've tried it and it's a disaster. At least for my taste and needs. It looks stable, yes, and modern, but it's inflexible and doesn't let me place icons where I need them as opposed to an overuse of the mouse. Nor is it an alternative as a Linux Mint user and now they are announcing Gnome 41. Will they make it more flexible now?
On the other hand MATE and XFCE do not appeal to me.
Question:
In which direction is Cinnamon developing? What will bring Cinnamon 5.1, ... 6.0 etc...? What I like the most on Cinnamon is the focus on the desktop and less on office or mail or internet applications ... as these already exists.... !
Psot Script: ... and what is about Wayland will be somewhere in the future ready to replace X?.
Thanks for your comments.

[Hoser Rob]

... It seems that one of the Cinnamon maintainers for Debian (Norbert Preining) has migrated to KDE. So his contribution to Cinnamon 5.0 for Debian is over. What does this mean for Linux Mint Cinnamon in general and for the Debian version in particular?.

I don't think the loss of one maintaner is going to make that much difference. Cinnamon isn't my thing personally.

... It seems that the KDE/Plasma 5 version is sweeping over the previous unstable versions 3 and 4.An additional highlight seems to be the wide range of applications available, much more than for Gnome for example. As a Linux Mint user, however KDE is not an alternative. Or am I wrong?

Plasma 5 taking over from PLasma 4 is old news. While KDE is much more my thing, it's not true that KDE apps are much more numerous than GTK apps, and Gnopme apps are really GTK ones. I mostly use GTK apps in KDE myself.

ANd no, Mint no longer offers a KDE version. The only way to get it is to install the KDE desktop, which can be done but using multiple DEs can cause problems, and if you want to use KDE why use a distro that doesn't support it?

Gnome 4 ... I've tried it and it's a disaster. At least for my taste and needs. It looks stable, yes, and modern, but it's inflexible and doesn't let me place icons where I need them as opposed to an overuse of the mouse. Nor is it an alternative as a Linux Mint user and now they are announcing Gnome 41. Will they make it more flexible now?

I doubt Gnome is going to change for your needs/wants, and if you dislike it so much it shouldn;'t be so much of an issue. I like Gnome 3+ even less than Cinnamon myself.

[mshmm]

It seems that one of the Cinnamon maintainers for Debian (Norbert Preining) has migrated to KDE. So his contribution to Cinnamon 5.0 for Debian is over. What does this mean for Linux Mint Cinnamon in general and for the Debian version in particular?.

Someone else (Joshua Peisach, who maintains the Ubuntu Cinnamon remix) stepped up to maintain Cinnamon in Debian back in June https://lists.debian.org/debian-cinnamo ... 00003.html. So no need for concern.

[absque fenestris]

...
Gnome 40
I've tried it and it's a disaster. At least for my taste and needs. It looks stable, yes, and modern, but it's inflexible and doesn't let me place icons where I need them as opposed to an overuse of the mouse. Nor is it an alternative as a Linux Mint user and now they are announcing Gnome 41. Will they make it more flexible now?
On the other hand MATE and XFCE do not appeal to me.
...

Am currently running GNOME 40 and was amused by your post.
Yes, in the basic configuration GNOME is ... Well - what actually? Kindergarten? For somehow disabled? For dirt-fingered touchscreen bacteria spreaders?
I was going to delete it again, but there was something - a simply stunning image quality on my HiDPI monitor. And a LibreOffice 7.2 that has no bugs in the graphics functions.
And so, now with GNOME Tweaks and massive use of extensions, the unspeakable Nautilus replaced by Dolphin and Caja, I can check the Mint Forums to see what's the news for Mint ...

But now serious again: Of course I'm a passionate Cinnamon user and can't keep my hands off KDE.
MATE and Xfce? I install them, look at them, but no enthusiasm arises.

[juan_lutz]

Thank you for your lines. @absque
I can only follow your comments.
Yes, I am a fan and user of LM and Cinnamon.
But as I have more than 12 years KDE behind me, I still flirt with that system, but it's nothing serious I couldn't change LM (Cinnamon) that's the point.
Mate and xfce ditto, I install them, look at them and nope, nothing happens.

By the way what about Wayland and Xorg, I read that Ubuntu 21.04 comes with Wayland by default but without Gnome 40! If necessary it is possible to re-enable Xorg.
it is something to be considered for the future LM version based on Ubuntu 21.04?
or Ubuntu did it because Unity?
What is the development of these desktops regarding Wayland, KDE Plasma is still working on this, Gnome I don't know and Cinnamon for sure is not doing anything yet with Wayland?
Greetings
J.-L.

[DPM]

It seems that one of the Cinnamon maintainers for Debian (Norbert Preining) has migrated to KDE. So his contribution to Cinnamon 5.0 for Debian is over. What does this mean for Linux Mint Cinnamon in general and for the Debian version in particular?.

Nothing. While Mint is based on Ubuntu which in turn is based on Debian, or Mint's LMDE being based on Debian directly, Cinnamon doesn't come from Debian or Ubuntu, it comes from Mint. So when it comes to Cinnamon, Debian is downstream, not upstream. You can see this easily: The current Debian 11, just released in August 2021, is on Cinnamon 4.8.6 while the current Mint 20.2 is on Cinnamon 5.0.5. If Debian hadn't found a replacement, which they did, it would have had impact on Debian users, but not on Mint.

Cinnamon uses modern technology but keeps the UI changes conservative, he said, (?).

Yes, that is exactly why I like Cinnamon. No weird "desktop revolution" stuff, only careful improvements.

What does this mean, what would be a NON-conservative position?

Trying to re-invent the way a desktop works - take Gnome 3 as pretty radical (and widely hated) example. Actually, Gnome's "innovation" was the reason why Mint came up with Cinnamon in the first place, exactly to reject that "innovation".

As a Linux Mint user, however KDE is not an alternative. Or am I wrong?

Correct. Under the hood, Cinnamon uses the GTK (Gnome Tool Kit) 3. Mate is on GTK 2. XFCE is on GTK 3, but I'm not sure whether Mint's XFCE is already the one on GTK 3 or the older one on GTK 2. In any way, you can see that all of them are GTK based. KDE, by contrast, is a completely different animal on Qt. That means all the Mint tools would need to be maintained on a totally different basis, which is why Mint doesn't offer a KDE version (anymore).

(Gnome) Will they make it more flexible now?

No. Gnome tells you to use it exactly as it is, and the Gnome devs don't even like themes because they seriously think Gnome looking different for every user would "hurt the Gnome brand". You can't make that up, they're that crazy.

In which direction is Cinnamon developing? What will bring Cinnamon 5.1, ... 6.0 etc...?

Basically, Cinnamon won't change. There will be improvements, such as bug fixes, reducing memory consumptions, adding more features to the file manager, maybe new tools. And, in the long run, Wayland.

and what is about Wayland will be somewhere in the future ready to replace X?.

That has been in the near future for years now. Everyone tells you that X is dead - except that it isn't. Wayland is not on the immediate roadmap for Mint because it's not yet ready for prime time. Mint positions itself as stable distro, and that means it is a late adopter, not an early one.

[Portreve]

I think most of what I was going to say has been already covered. Therefore, I'll just add the following...

Cinnamon has, in a relatively short span of years, become one of the major and dominant desktop environments in the Linux world, and not without good reason. It's taken all the best of Apple's Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X / macOS desktop environment and combined it with those bits of Windows which were actually good.

Gnome 3, while it absolutely has improved over the years, is still very much a solution in search of a problem, particularly where desktop computer usage is concerned. Yes, they've made an effective touch screen-oriented UI, and (maybe) in a world where people were using tablets a lot more, it would make sense. However, it was and still is a terrible waste of screen real estate, and in contexts where the user is not in a touch screen environment, it's inefficient and unintuitive.

As someone who came out of the Macintosh world, I absolutely am all about the fit and finish, but user interface beauty is about more than just slick looks.

[Moem]

Mod note:
The question asked by rai111 can now be found here.

[Grayfox]

No. Gnome tells you to use it exactly as it is, and the Gnome devs don't even like themes because they seriously think Gnome looking different for every user would "hurt the Gnome brand". You can't make that up, they're that crazy.

That sounds quite "Apple Like" IMO.
And Apple is the exact opposite of what Linux embodies which is freedom.

[ivar]

^ my thoughts exactly, those Gnome guys sounds like the antithesis of the whole linux ideal of freedom

[DPM]

That sounds quite "Apple Like" IMO.

IMO, the Gnome devs are trying to emulate Apple while being utterly clueless about why this just doesn't fly. They don't do actual user testing, which Apple used to do in a distant past, and Gnome just doesn't pair with hanging out at Starbucks' drinking latte macchiato, i.e. the primary use case for overpriced Macs. Without cookies of course because crumbles apparently break the display on recent Macs while they instead just used to break the keyboard.

[absque fenestris]

That sounds quite "Apple Like" IMO.

IMO, the Gnome devs are trying to emulate Apple while being utterly clueless about why this just doesn't fly. They don't do actual user testing, which Apple used to do in a distant past, and Gnome just doesn't pair with hanging out at Starbucks' drinking latte macchiato, i.e. the primary use case for overpriced Macs. Without cookies of course because crumbles apparently break the display on recent Macs while they instead just used to break the keyboard.

What you can definitely say for sure is that both posters have no idea about the macOS desktop.

The Apple menu bar, Finder and Dock are intertwined in a way that no Linux desktop can or will imitate. For example, every application menu is shown in the menubar only, the Finder is always running, clicking on the desktop takes you directly to the Finder, the windows close button closes a program window but not the program itself etc. pp.
The price Apple paid for this behavior was high: it took them more than four years to trim NexTSTEP to a highly modified Mac OS 9. And by the way, Apple took NexTSTEP completely off the market as a Unix variant. Probably the most stupid decision of Uncle Steve.

What is compared here again and again are trivial desktop decorations, but a decoration has very little to do with the underlying system. If there is a comparison, then GNOME is most like Android or iOS.

[DPM]

What you can definitely say for sure is that both posters have no idea about the macOS desktop.

I didn't say that Gnome wants to be like macOS. I said they want to be like Apple. Means, Gnome removes options and features because Apple did so in the past. Yeah, but Apple didn't just do that, they also thought about how the whole workflow would be optimised, and that's what Gnome never understood.

[absque fenestris]

As far as worflow is concerned, I had absolutely no trouble switching from the then OSX to the then GNOME 2. On the contrary, in 2-monitor mode Linux was much more practical with the independent window-related menus.
Switching from OSX to the then Windows XP I found to be an absolute imposition.
Until today; I find the Windows File Explorer an absolute work brake - horribly cumbersome. The Apple Finder is more or less the same and Nemo, Caja and Dolphin are really good.
What the GNOME team has done with Nautilus is a real shame.
Apple didn't actually remove things, but hid them from the user. Absolutely stupid, as well as the forced membership in the cloud and the music and program distribution with the built-in credit card reader.
The fact that you are also permanently monitored, scanned and reprimanded as a reward for all the naked undressing doesn't make the whole thing any better.
But this business behavior is reserved for Apple. Adobe happily goes along with it, and once again, Windows can learn something.


I really have yet to give my favorite example of how complete idiots can completely ruin a good concept: The green window button.



Apple of course. For decades it was the window optimization (means the window reduced to the minimum). So to speak over night it was changed to window maximization without menu bar... as an old Mac user you throw such a system into the garbage and that's it.

We can only hope that such morons do not end up in Linux desktop development.